Autism Blog Spotlight Life with Aspergers

By Tammy, on August 4th, 2012

There are a lot of Autism Blogs written by moms. The Autism blog that I want to introduce to you is written by a man with Aspergers. It’s called Life with Aspergers and is written by Gavin. Gavin was diagnosed with Aspergers as an adult. He also has a son that has high functioning Autism. When you read one of his posts, you are getting the first hand viewpoint, and that of a parent of an autistic child.

I love reading Gavin’s posts. I also love it when he leaves a comment on one of my posts. It’s like I am reading a comment from my son. As most of you know, my son is completely nonverbal. He doesn’t like to communicate using his augmentative device, but he will use it to get his basic needs across. Reading a comment from Gavin, or reading one of his blog posts, gives me an insight into what my son might be thinking or feeling. It gets me thinking about things from his point of view, instead of just mine.

Life with Aspergers Blog Post on Empathy

Gavin recently wrote an article on empathy. My son has trouble telling what someone else is feeling. He understands that we are angry when we raise our voice. He understands we are sad if we are crying. It’s everything in-between that he has trouble with. He’ll laugh at inappropriate times. But, he’ll also show great compassion for his sister. He likes to make her happy, and will do something for her or give her something he thinks she will like. Gavin wrote:

Aspies, and male aspies in particular, are problem solvers. Throw a problem at them and their brains will go into overdrive to solve it.

I think this can apply to my son. If his sister is upset because she wants something, he will give it to her. Problem solved. I see this with my son all of the time. If someone in the family is having a problem, he will try to fix it. His way of fixing it might not always work, but he tries. Is there an exception? Yes. When the answer to the problem conflicts with what he wants, or is able to do.

My son doesn’t express all of his emotions in an obvious way. It’s obvious when he is really happy, really upset, or in a lot of pain. Again, it’s everything in-between that he has trouble expressing. I’ve learned to read his emotions, but I’m his mom. I’ve had 13 years of on the job experience with raising my son.

I recommend reading Gavin’s post on empathy. It helps explain how and why emotions are felt and displayed by a an Aspie adult, but it can be applied to all children on the spectrum. He gives the reader a lot of insight into understanding the expression of emotions.

Thank you for the referral, I didn’t see this until a few minutes ago (my feeds have a lot of backlog to get through).

Tammy, I’m so glad that you’re back here. I’ve missed your writing so much (no disrespect intended towards the other Tammy). As soon as you came back, your blog started to become more real, more down-to-earth and more heartfelt.

I love the way you’re interpreting your son’s intentions in this post. It shows a desire on your part to understand, rather than to change him. I think that’s absolutely beautiful.

It wasn’t that long ago that I and many other bloggers were arguing about whether or not people with autism have emotions. Now we’re past that. We’re starting to discuss whether or not they feel emotion more strongly than neurotypicals. (Note; feel and show are two very different things).